Organization Studies

This paper is an attempt to extend and amplify the concept of transaction and its relation to alternative organizational forms. Based on the institutional economics tradition of Commons (1924), the economics of internal organizations (Williamson 1975), and recent developments in organization theory (Ouchi 1980), it proposes a conceptual scheme to explain what distinguishes organizational forms and the transformation of these forms under the condition of future uncertainty. The implications of this framework for organization theory and design are also discussed.

Some elements of a critical organization theory are outlined, and some basic features of theory in the Frankfurt tradition, in particular Marcuse's view on technological rationality, are discussed. This concept is central to the effort made in the paper to formulate a framework for critical analysis of industrial and other business organizations in late capitalist society. In this framework, an emancipatory rather than a technical-instrumental interest of knowledge is of fundamental importance. Six basic theses are elaborated concerning the relation between man, work, organization and ideology in advanced industrial society.

The issue of the possible impact of technology on industrial democracy is explored theoretically, using two different approaches — sociotechnical theory and the Marxist labour-process approach. Within each of these approaches, a model of the interaction between technology and democratization is developed to illustrate how different theoretical conceptions produce different problematics and expose a seemingly similar issue in nearly non-comparable ways. The social basis of these differences is also discussed, and the necessity of further theoretical work is argued.

The top managements of 75 Indian corporate and other organizations were surveyed for their policy orientation. A composite orientation, labelled pioneering innovative (PI), was identified through a hierarchical factor analysis. PI measured policy commitment to pioneering novel, relatively sophisticated products (or services) and technologies, and to innovation and experimentation, risk-taking, flexibility, and creativity. PI seemed to have adequate validity and reliability. Over time, however, there seemed to be a stronger tendency for change from low PI scores to high PI scores rather than vice versa. An analysis of PI scores by ownership (private versus governmental), activity (manufacturing versus service), industry, technology (custom, batch/mass, and process), and size indicated that PI was largely independent of these factors, and seemed, therefore, to be a relatively open strategic choice for managements in developing countries. The significant correlation between PI, the growth rate and some other performance indicators suggests that high values of PI may have instrumental value for poor societies attempting to achieve rapid growth and modernization.